Look what unrolled from the TP roll (UPDATED)
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Just another day at Columbia: David Rafferty says like it or lump it — and if you don't like it, transfer
Greenwich’s own, Mr. David Rafferty, has sized up the current campus thugs and written to the CT Insider to complain that Jews scared for their safety, and students whose classes, library study halls, and even their examinations are being disrupted and cancelled are free to shut up and stay, or find a new school and leave.
David Rafferty (opinion): Colleges are businesses. Students upset about protests can take their business elsewhere
“College is a business. … Ever since Saint Reagan kicked off the right-wing campaign to make America dumb (and also mean, bitter, and xenophobic) again, colleges and universities have been increasingly vilified by certain people as pinko ideological indoctrination centers. Liberal training camps that only serve to make people woke, question their gender and/or identity, and produce squishy navel-gazing young adults who are ill-prepared and ill-suited to survive in “real” America.” [No argument here — that’s exactly who and what they are; excellent description.]
“And sure, while it makes great headlines to cherry-pick stories about select students and select campus policies and movements that confirm some of those tropes, you know what else American colleges produce? A highly educated, highly engaged and highly motivated populace that continues to actually renew and replenish the cutting-edge workforce that remains the envy of the world.” [But those highly educated, motivated students are not the squishy, navel-gazing children mentioned above. Nor are they Molotov Cocktail-tossing Princeton graduates incinerating police cars.]
“Which is exactly what scares the deplorables when they see a boy on campus wearing mascara and a Me-Too T-shirt. They can’t, or won’t, see past his looks to see the critical thinker studying economics to better understand how climate change disrupts the supply chain. [Darn it, he’s right again: I don’t see that — can’t see what isn’t there]. What the deplorables actually can’t stand is that mascara boy will be smarter and more successful than they will be. Because done properly, higher education makes you better [I believe that Mr. Rafferty is himself a college graduate — and also a stay-at-home Mom. Just sayin’] so of course they have to hate the universities.”
“Enough soapboxing, and back to the premise that colleges are primarily a business. If you hired a painter or plumber and they didn’t do the job you wanted, you would fire them. If your bank laundered terrorist money you might take your money out and switch banks. If your landlord stopped repairing your home you’d move. That’s just business.” [So, our universities are the equivalent of incompetent tradesmen or corrupt bankers? I can buy that.]
“Well, in the last year many colleges have been ground zero for pro-Palestinian protests, some of which were ugly and antisemitic, often leading to resignations, cancelled graduations, hostile police activities, harassment of students and teachers and so much more. These protests, regardless of what your position is regarding the never-ending Middle Eastern conflicts, sent tens of thousands of students home for the summer questioning everything, and wondering “what does it all mean?” for good ole State U.” [Sent home early, in fact, because the schools were forced to shut down.]
“It turns out that it meant very little. Yes, the protests are back and so are the responses from universities and law enforcement. But you know who else is back? All the students who said how much these protests, the hatred, and the over-the-top responses bothered them. Last year, thousands of alumni and university donors made headlines with very public denouncements of what was happening on campus, pulling their support and donations. You might have thought then that there would have been an uptick in students who did the same, deciding that they would rather take their education somewhere else.” [Certainly, the money did, as well as job opportunities for students: “Columbia University facing ‘donor crisis’ after anti-Israel protests on campus. Alumni money, and job opportunities for new graduates.”]
“Students [he means Jewish students] have been telling us for a year that they are struggling, that they don’t know what to do. They say their college is failing them, not supporting them, creating an unsafe space for them to learn and live. If they worked at Starbucks [as many of Rafferty’s favorite students will] and their boss regularly make them feel unsafe they’d quit. Yet they still overwhelmingly returned to the same schools, prepared to accept the same fearful, violent, antisemitic situations they left last May, and what should we make of that? Remember, college is a business. And this summer, students could have shown their schools they were serious about wanting better, telling them they’re taking their business elsewhere.” [And why should they?]
“Students choosing to transfer from Columbia or UCLA sends a message potentially even more powerful than alumni pulling their donations. It says you’re serious when you say you want a school that matches your moral and ethical code. It says too that obligation is a two-way street, [two-ways, or one-way? University administrators let the protestors rampage unpunished, while threatened students can leave. That might better be described as “our way or the highway”], and if the school isn’t prepared to support those morals, defend your safety and support you as a person [they aren’t — UVA caves, will not discipline disruptive anti-Israel activists: The students had all charges dropped after they met with Student Affairs officials.] then your leaving is on them. They will have cancelled themselves.”
“But if you stay, then that’s on you. Anyone currently on a campus where the protests and counter-protests, violence and fear is still front and center, well, you can’t say you didn’t have options.” [You have no right to expect your school to protect you or keep classes open — who do you think you are, anyway?]
Here’s an interesting fact Rafferty ignores or doesn’t care about:
At least 1,200 of those incidents occurred on college campuses, a 500 percent increase from the year prior
That rather dramatically shrinks the number of schools fearful students can flee to, no?
“It's clear however, that Greenwich is not immune from the tyranny of the stupid and small-minded that often lurks on the internet.” David raferty, November 17, 2017
UPDATE:
Reader Jennifer Lowitt has copied me with a letter she sent to the editors of CT Insider. It’s tone is far more polite than something I’d write, but I do like her penultimate point: “[S]tudents who choose not to be driven out by hate but instead continue their education and fight for their rights with their chins held high should be applauded, not vilified". I agree, though Rafferty won't — his admiration is reserved for the dolts, navel-gazers, and thugs who’ve infested the country’s campuses (query: why don’t they leave, if, as Rafferty claims students should “if you’re serious when you say you want a school that matches your moral and ethical code”? Are they choosing to stay because of principle? Then Rafferty should applaud Jewish students who are doing the same thing.)
To the Editor:
I write to respond to David Rafferty’s opinion piece regarding “Colleges are Businesses…Students Upset about Protests can take their Business Elsewhere” and I was concerned by the tone and the statements on the subject.
There actually has been a trend of Jewish students seeking transfers away from universities where antisemitism has exploded (see links below). I can also say that as a Jewish parent with college-age kids, I know more than a few Jewish students who are no longer applying to certain schools in the northeast and are instead applying in the south due to antisemitism concerns (as referenced in the free press article linked below) which will likely be further evident in the next application cycle. So, in fact, Jewish students are voting with their feet.
In addition, transferring is not as easy as Mr. Rafferty makes it sound. Many students may be constrained by financial reasons (scholarships etc.) or geographical reasons. Yet he gives them no sympathy. Finally, I would note that students who choose not to be driven out by hate but instead continue their education and fight for their rights with their chins held high should be applauded, not vilified.
I’d be curious to see the resources Mr. Rafferty relied upon in forming his opinion if he would share them.
Sincerely, Jennifer Lowitt Riverside, Ct
